Extremely tuff historical drama-meets-revenge exploitationer about a gentle surgeon forced to get revenge on the Nazis who kill his family in a French countryside town at the tail-end of WW2. Captivating tactics, no-quarter cruelty, and raw emotion withheld propel this well above your average genre fare.
Are you a bad enough dude to sack a small, crooked African nation? Christopher Walken is, thanks to a lifetime hollowed out by mercenary action and a band of buddies who couldn’t rock harder if Tom Berenger had two mustaches. Invite the whole boys chat over for this one.
Luchino Visconti directs Anna Magnani in this tale of a determined stage mom in postwar Italy. It’s lighter fare than anything I’ve seen either of them do, but no Little Miss Sunshine, either. A film of indomitable dignity.
Had the immense privilege of taking my wife to see this rough and tumble picaresque at The Quad for her first viewing. Reader, it changed everything. Barbara Loden’s one and only picture is a testament to what American filmmakers are capable of when they let go of genre and artifice and simply let a character live.
We’d been watching Paramount’s The Offer—self-mythologizing and repetitive, but the accents are great for imitating—so it felt right to watch the One and Only. I’m a G1 man myself, as I vastly prefer Brando’s bits to De Niro’s Donscension, but I can’t argue with the fact that here is that rare case of a movie whose production history alone is worth a whole miniseries.
The eternal struggle between the haves and have-nots is given a fascinating form in James N. Kienitz Wilkins’ experimental comedy about a contractor hired to renovate his art school roommate’s project house. Shot entirely using motion capture, then built-out with the Unreal engine, Wilkins’ ingenious film crosses the uncanny valley and asks, who is afforded depth and dimensions in a society stratified by class? Pair it with Bouchra, which plays this weekend at Metrograph. You’ll know why once you’ve seen both.
One of those real late-night last-resorts that nevertheless remains relevant through the dated idea of the party line: a phone number where anyone could call-in and interact with the anonymous voices, together, on the other line.
Park Chan-wook’s sturdy and stylish political thriller is a testament to friendship, even when borders and national security crises threaten to tear us apart. Certain elements could be subtler, but its investigation into the murders of two North Korean soldiers at the demilitarized zone exposes a regional wound that is anything but subtle. I liked it as a mystery fan, but even the most xenophobic Boomer will find something to love about this.
The way you guys were talking about this as being the best movie of 2025… Kind of crazy, but at the same time, it’s still head and shoulders above the rest of the Academy nominees. Who the titular secret agent is remains elusive, but its tale of a journalist on the lam in the 70s maps chillingly onto our increasingly repressive current moment. Like with Bacurau, it runs out of steam and likely budget by the end, but Brazil has never looked better.
The kind of quirky comedy-drama with heart you might enjoy if you got knocked out in the celebration after Obama’s victory and woke up with no knowledge of the last 18 years.
I’ve been going to the theater at 9AM on Tuesdays when tickets are like $10, and for $10 on a Tuesday at 9AM, I could (and will) see much worse. I’m inclined to side with my friend rayne on this one…
…but I do think that the performances nevertheless find and elevate some truths its writer-director may never have intended, like the sick feeling of realizing you got what you only thought you wanted, and of being at war within yourself. Go figure.
Rebecca Hall could elevate a honeywagon. Not that this tale of an early paranormal investigator debunking a haunting at a boys’ school is bad, but it presents as something generic that only true Hall-heads might stick around for. Nevertheless, the faithful are rewarded, as ghost stories that become explorations of the psyche are, in this writer’s opinion, the perfect synthesis of the spiritualist and scientific-materialist traditions.
This is an insane piece of shit, however, but it’s worth it to see the esteemed Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek react truthfully to a Puritan child being Street Fighter-slapped by a screaming demon.
Late-80s cyberpunk action thriller that far exceeds its budget in punches, kicks, hair gel, and explosions. Two men, one a cop, the other a GG Allin-style pedophile who lives in the sewer, on a crash course with destiny… Folks, don’t just trust me on this one, trust Tangerine Dream who did the soundtrack.
Stops to salute the American flag no fewer than 7 times, but if you’re looking for a time capsule of Post-9/11 American triumphalism, Chris Pine’s Jack Ryan is better than John Krasinski’s and Ben Affleck’s. Not as good as Harrison Ford’s, though.
Sometimes a story is so unique, so of its moment, that the immediate response becomes ridicule. How else do you process the tale of a bukkake extra murdering his only friend with a prop samurai sword in a low-rent live-in porn studio, then accidentally jumping to his death amidst a SWAT Team standoff in the Hollywood Hills? With empathy, of course. Mope is exactly that film.
Can’t say I enjoyed watching my first Rohmer—all talk, no motion, good looking actors with little material substance to hold onto—but now when I think it, I remember it fondly. Like a warm summer memory. Weird.
Cried on the plane watching La Chimera on the way back from my first trip to Italy, cried on the couch watching my second Alice Rohrwacher film. She’s as dazzling a storyteller as we have today, lending a gently mythopoetic touch to the tale of a simple sharecropper with a heart of gold. Strong contender for film of the century so far, not even joking.
Folk horror seems like an easy win in Ireland, where the lore’s as terrifying as it is numinous, but they somehow managed to squander this by focusing on yet another parental trauma narrative. This time, he’s a mean ponce—er, a misunderstood writer—with no ending to his story-within-a-story, which feels like it was inserted entirely to access some Abu Dhabi discretionary fund. A murder mystery and a haunted hotel movie compete for screen time, but you’re better off watching What Lies Beneath or 1408, respectively.
One of those formal-experimental labors of love that feels more like a series of Adult Swim bumpers strung together under a loose theme and aesthetic, with occasional flashes of brilliance, I mean things that had me laughing out loud, but not because they’re complex or elaborate. Maybe this is profoundly stupid, but, for instance, there’s this one lady who makes a funny face, and it just got me. Go figure.
See my review for Happy as Lazzaro. There’s a moment in this film about a family of coastal beekeepers that visually and emotionally transports you to back the Year Zero or earlier, yet it’s entirely motivated and takes place in the here and now. I felt myself unable to breathe in the face of its primordial beauty. Alice Rohrwacher could do The Odyssey, but Chris Nolan couldn’t do The Wonders.
What’d you watch last month? What’d you love? Any recommendations from me? Drop a comment—especially if you end up watching one of these—and follow me on Letterboxd for reviews on the fly.
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